Emphasis and Real Time Programs and Astro Time Clock Issues with Looping Macros

A problem occurs when you have a looped macro (or macros) in the Real Time Program. The same problem would occur if Remote Macros were being used. Macros fired by RTP or Remote Macros are queued up. The "next" macro will not fire until the "current" macro completes. This means if a looping macro is fired (to play a series of cues over and over with waits, for example), it NEVER completes (because it loops to itself) and the next timed event will appear never to fire.

"Night Watchman" macros do not "fix" this problem in Emphasis. Bugs that exist in Express/ion v3.1 software are not in the Emphasis Console software. The macros in the RTP are operating as designed to prevent RTPs or Remote Macros from "stomping" on each other.

The solution to this problem is one of show programming. Sites that experience this problem should use subroutines to create the loops, rather than looping macros. The macro in the RTP event fires the subroutine and completes, and the subroutine takes over the looping of the cues. Ten hours later (or whatever) when the next event runs, everything will be fine. If subroutines are not going to provide the type of cueing the customer needs, internal time code can be used to set up intricate cue structures that loop. The RTP only has to turn time code on and off and reset the clock to zero as necessary to run the daily show.